


Nico is Not a Damsel in Distress

by towokuwusatsuwu



Category: Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Arcades, Canon What Canon, F/F, Flirting, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-18 20:32:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11298306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towokuwusatsuwu/pseuds/towokuwusatsuwu
Summary: Nico does not need to be rescued when a few boys at Genm Arcade decide to quite literally get up in her face, but Hina is both cute and strong. Sometimes the things you want are not the things you need.





	Nico is Not a Damsel in Distress

It isn’t as though Nico Saiba comes to arcades like this one for the express purpose of starting fights with the boys her age and the young men slightly older than her. She comes to game, and she comes to prove she is still the best at games, and if that means hurting a feel feelings and stepping on a few fragile male egos in the process, so be it.

She happens to be better at games than most people no matter their gender alignment, and she happens to take pride in that. Games take strategy and thought process and the understanding of the game’s mechanics and how best to make sure of them. How to find advantages and seize them and then put them to their best possible use. Her high scores scattered across the arcade speak to her volume of skill, after all, and in the few times that someone manages to overcome her somehow or some way, she comes back and stakes her claim once again.

But the boys in their late teens and early twenties tend to be the easiest to offend simply by being better than them, and before Nico really knows what’s happening, she’s surrounded by about five of them, backed up against the machine she’s been playing for the last half an hour.

This is not a new position, all things considered, but she’s tired and the last few days have been a draining experience on her, and though she can ably defend herself, she wishes she didn’t have to think about doing it. She just wants to get a basket of fries, sit down at a table, and take a breath for a few minutes before deciding on one of the new games to play. But she cracks her knuckles grimly, accepting she’s going to have to clear her own path to the table first.

“What are you doing?” The voice is unfamiliar to her ears and she cocks her head, trying to peer through the men in front of her until, quite suddenly, one of them is gone.

The crash of a human body into hardwood makes Nico’s jaw drop just slightly, her eyes widening when a girl only slightly taller than her roughly elbow another guy out of the way.

The guy hits the ground.  _ Hard. _ Harder than anyone should after being elbowed like that.

“Cornering a girl like this!” The girl shoves another guy back— a good fifteen feet. “Awful!”

By the time she finishes clearing the space around Nico in another few seconds, the guys have mostly scrambled to their feet, helping their friend up off of the ground, bolting from the establishment. Some people watch the scene wide-eyed, others stand up and clap while the girl now standing in front of Nico blushes, hiding her face behind her hands, shaking her head.

“I hate it when they make a big deal out of things like this.” She whispers the words, and though they’re muffled against her palms, Nico is still close enough to her to hear what she says just the same. “I didn’t  _ do _ anything. Anyway.” She lowers her hands, peeking over the tops of her fingers. “Are you okay? Those jerks didn’t hurt you or anything, did they?”

If it had been anyone else who came to her rescue like this— especially a man— Nico would have been pissed, and the first words out of her mouth would have been a stark reminder that she can take care of herself, maybe paired with a fist to the jaw depending on how smug the person is about having come to save her. After all, Nico is not some princess, some damsel in distress to be saved as the final objective to a fantasy game. She can do more than just defend herself, and those five guys were hardly going to be a difficult task to take care of all on her own.

But the girl standing in front of her can hardly be any older or younger than her, and instead of preening or expecting thanks or praise, she looks almost  _ embarrassed _ to have stepped in on Nico’s behalf. Embarrassed to have helped, or maybe even embarrassed at her own strength, something that makes Nico’s mouth dry and her tongue feel like cotton behind her teeth, unable to form proper words no matter how many times she tries to make it happen.

Of course, she’s fine. The guys had only done a bit of trash talking and made themselves try to be scary, and none of them had touched her. They hadn’t had the time, to tell the truth, but this doesn’t stop Nico from lifting her foot just slightly off of the ground, faking a wince as she reaches down to touch her ankle. The girl’s eyes widen, her expression soft and concerned, and Nico isn’t sure she’s ever seen a girl this pretty in her entire life.

“I think I hurt my ankle,” she says, tentatively trying to put her foot down, then gasping and lifting it back up, balancing precariously with one hand on the machine behind her.

“Men are so horrible, I’m sorry.” The girl immediately moves forward and Nico expects to get an arm to brace herself on. She doesn’t expect to be picked up as if she weighs less than a bag of feathers, biting back a quiet squeak of shock. “Here, let me find us an empty table.”

Yet again, Nico is not a princess, but there is something special about being carried over to one of the empty tables by this mysterious girl who sits her down with the utmost care on the table top before dropping down into one of the chairs and carefully setting Nico’s “injured” ankle in her lap. Nico would be lying if she said she wasn’t touched by this display, all things considered; she still sneers when a boy she doesn’t recognize walks up to them, all billowing clothing and concern.

“What happened?” he asks, crouching down by the chair, and Nico softens her sneer just slightly when the girl smiles grimly at him. The two of them obviously know each other, and if this girl is okay with this guy, he must not be too bad after all. “I can go get some ice from behind the counter if you want, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind giving us some if she’s hurt.”

“That’d be nice, Eiji, thank you,” the girl says, giving him a swift nod and a bright smile.

“Is he your boyfriend or something?” Nico asks, watching Eiji retreat toward the counter before turning her attention back to the girl in front of her. The pant leg of her jeans has been rolled up just enough to expose her ankle now, the girl inspecting her skin carefully.

Still, she looks up at the question, then laughs. “Eiji? No. He’s like a big brother to me.”

“I have one of those, too. A guy who's like a big brother to me.” The thought of Taiga makes Nico sigh; if he hears about this, he’s going to be pissed to know she’s still picking fights in arcades when she long since promised she wasn’t going to be doing that anymore. Coming out on top every time doesn’t mean that he isn’t still worried when he’s dabbing antiseptic on her bruised and battered knuckles and telling her she’s going to ruin her joints at this rate. “Thanks for helping me. I’m pretty great at self-defense, but it’s nice to not have to do it all myself.”

“I just hate it when men try to threaten women like that. It’s so gross, even if you have the super strength to knock a whole bunch of them out without trying.” The girl blushes again at her own words and Nico purses her lips in thought. Super strength? That sounds like a good time to her, but she guesses this girl must have had her fair share of struggling with it that’s made her not appreciate it very much. After all, everyone feels things differently.

Eiji returns with a zipped plastic bag of ice cubes, handing it obediently off to the girl before taking his leave, and Nico watches him return to a table housing a group of people she doesn’t think she’s ever seen here before. Then there’s a shock of cold against her skin and she squeaks, covering her mouth with her hand; she’d been too distracted to remember the fact the makeshift icepack is supposed to be for her in the first place. The girl smiles up at her, and there’s no judgement in her gaze, so Nico can at least feel a little less embarrassed as she sits here, feeling oddly comfortable in this strange girl’s presence. Truthfully, Nico has never not felt the most comfortable around other girls, something that answered more than a few of the questions she ended up asking herself as she got older and an interest in boys never quite appeared.

“I’m Nico. Nico Saiba,” she finally says when she realizes she hasn’t introduced herself to her heroine, holding out a hand to her with a bright smile. “I’m here all the time and I don’t think I’ve seen you here before, but listen, Genm Arcade is one of the best places for arcade games in the country. And I promise it’s not always like it was tonight.”

The girl laughs and takes her hand, and her grip is a little too firm, but Nico just swoons a little at that despite herself. “Hina Izumi, and I haven’t been here before. A friend of ours just moved into an apartment nearby and we had a housewarming party this afternoon and thought we might explore a little bit before heading home. This is a really cool place.”

“That’s cool. I have a housewarming party in a couple weeks. Two friends moving in together, y’know how it is.” Nico rolls her eyes and Hina laughs, and Nico counts that as a victory. “So, do you often show up at new places and sweep girls off of their feet, or?”

Hina blushes again, but this time she just smiles instead of hiding her face. “Only the pretty ones,” she says, and this time Nico hides her face behind her hands.

Admittedly, she’s been spending more time bettering herself at games than she has been trying to make friends her own age, much less finding cute girls to flirt with. Occasionally she flirts here at the arcade, but most of the time her attention is consumed by whatever machine she’s sat herself in front of, and on the evenings when Parad, her one true competition shows up, she has to focus on the games so she doesn’t fall behind in what has become a neck-and-neck race to see which one of them is the best. This is the first time in a long time she’s just allowed herself to relax.

“I think you must have just twisted it because it doesn’t look like it’s swelling too badly,” Hina informs her after a few minutes, lifting the icepack to look at her ankle. “Which is good, because a twist will just heal on its own given enough time. You should keep it elevated, too.”

Nico nods; she’s heard this before from Taiga, but she’s never really cared enough to listen to him before. And even though she’s fine, she finds herself listening to Hina just the same. “I’ll call Taiga to come pick me up. I usually take the late bus home, but I don’t want to wait with a bum ankle.”

She calls Taiga on her cell phone, rolling her eyes at the obvious concern in his voice when she tells him about how Hina helped her, rolling her eyes harder when she tells him she has a twisted ankle and doesn’t want to wait for the bus. But he promises to come get her, and though she will never admit it to herself, the concern in his voice is nice to hear. Taiga has been the best big brother she could ask for ever since they met each other, and she would like to think they’ll continue being the found family they’ve always been for each other. She’d like that.

Since Taiga acts all but allergic to the arcade, Hina offers to help her outside so they can wait together, and though Nico swears she can walk, Hina still picks her up and carries her outside. Not that Nico can complain, her cheek resting against Hina’s shoulder, arms looped loosely around her shoulders. This is… Nice, nicer than she would have thought possible, nicer than she would have thought to ask for to find out if it was good or not. She’s never wanted to look soft or weak or vulnerable, at least not in front of most people, but this? This is oddly pleasant.

“How’d you get this strong?” she asks after Hina sets her neatly on the bench outside.

“I’ve always been this strong.” Hina sits next to her, hands folded neatly in her lap, and again Nico is struck by just how pretty she is. “It’s… Hard, sometimes. I don’t always enjoy it.”

“Well, I was pretty impressed back there, y’know. I’d love to be as strong as a character in one of my favorite games.” Nico boxes against the air a few times and Hina chuckles at her, shaking her head. “But you’re really gentle, too. Not just strong. You were when you carried me, anyway.”

Hina’s hand drifts over just slightly, her fingers brushing Nico’s where Nico’s hand rests on the bench seat. “You’re really sweet. And I’m glad I didn’t scare you or anything!”

“No way, nothing like that could ever scare me.” Nico fumbles her phone out of her jacket pocket, tapping her code in impatiently. “Hey, um, I don’t know if you’d be interested, but maybe we could meet up here again? And this time I can show you some of the coolest games.”

Hina cocks her head at her. “You’d want to meet up again here?”

“This is, like, one of my favorite places in the world,” Nico says, cocking her thumb at the building behind them. “I used to come here all the time as a kid, and I wouldn’t want your only impression of this place to be that you had to save a girl from a group of idiots or something.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. She was a cute girl, so I think I’ll have some fond memories of the place.” Still, Hina takes the phone from Nico’s outstretched fingers, quickly typing in her phone number. “You can text me and I’ll know it’s you. And I’d love to meet up here with you again.”

It takes Nico a solid two minutes to process Hina’s words even once she has her phone back in her hands. “I’m just checking, but. You just called me cute, didn’t you? Or did you save another girl?”

“You’re the only girl I’ve saved tonight. And yes, I’m calling you cute.” Hina taps her on the brim of her snapback and Nico blinks, wide-eyed. She’s never been called cute before.

“Thanks.” Her voice sounds distant even to her, and she gives herself a shake. “You’re really pretty, too. And… Thanks. Even if I didn’t need help, it was really nice to get it.”

Taiga pulls up not five minutes later, stopping right in front of the bench and shoving open his car door forcefully. “I swear to God, you get into more trouble than I did when I was your age, and I…” He trails off when he sees Hina, quirking a brow at Nico. “Make a new friend, did you?”

“I’ll tell you about it when you get me home, thanks.” Nico pushes herself up, remembering to put a little limp in her step, and Taiga comes to help her. “Bye, Hina. Thank you again.”

As soon as the car is a suitable distance away from the arcade (five feet at most, Taiga has always been impatient), he bombards her with questions, and she answers them truthfully, tucking her hands behind her head as he drives. Her mind drifts back to the way it had felt to be in Hina’s arms, to not have to be strong and tough and invulnerable for a few precious minutes. It’s a bad habit, she knows that, she knows she needs to relax a little, that she and Taiga both have a habit of affecting a front that pushes more people away than they intend, and yet…

“You have a crush,” Taiga says without missing a beat, and he smiles that small, secretive smile.

“Yeah,” Nico confirms, letting her eyes fall closed as a broad smile spreads across her lips. “Yeah, I do. And I think she likes me, too.”


End file.
